Agdal Gardens

The Agdal Gardens (or Aguedal Gardens) are gardens, of about 400 hectares (4.0 km2; 1.5 sq mi) of surface, to the south of Dar El Makhzen, the Royal Palace, and the medina in Marrakech, Morocco. Their name derives from the Berber language for "walled meadow". Extending for some 3 kilometres (1.9 mi), the gardens include groves of orange, lemon, fig, apricot and pomegranate trees in rectangular plots, linked by olive-lined walkways.

The gardens are irrigated using a number of pools and ditches. A network of underground channels and ditches, known as khettera, bring water down from the High Atlas mountains many kilometres away, via Aghmat in the Ourika Valley to the south.

The Dar El Hana, a small pavilion or minzah, stands beside the largest pool, the Sahraj el-Hana (Tank of Health), which was used to train troops to swim. Sultan Mohammed IV died in the pool when his steam launch capsized there in 1873.[1] His successor, Sultan Moulay Hassan, housed his harem in another pavilion in the gardens, the Dar al Baida.